Senior Muslim cleric assassinated in south Russia

LONDON, May 25 (Reuters) - A senior Muslim cleric was shot dead on Monday in the capital of Russia's volatile southern region of Dagestan, Interfax news agency reported.

Akhmed Tagayev was deputy mufti of the Clerical Directorate of Muslims of Dagestan and was considered a leading opponent of "religious extremism" among Muslims, the agency said.

"An unknown criminal shot Tagayev in the head from a pistol at about 2235 hours...and escaped, probably in a motor car. The deputy mufti died on the spot from a head wound," Interfax quoted a local interior ministry spokesman as saying

Dagestan borders Chechnya, where Russia has fought two wars since the mid-1990s to crush Muslim separatists. As security in Chechnya has improved, instability has worsened elsewhere in the region, where poverty and violence provide a fertile recruiting ground for Islamist militants and rebels.

Russia's Vesti television reported separately on Monday that four policemen from Chechnya had been killed in a special operation in Ingushetia, a neighbouring republic of Russia's troubled North Caucasus. (Writing by Mark Trevelyan; editing by Ralph Boulton)